


Not this, nor any flower

by breathedout



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: (Not because I decided to write an AU just because I haven't seen S2 yet), Canon-Typical Violence, Clothing Destruction, Clothing Porn, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, F/F, Face-Sitting, Fingering, Identity Crises, Injury and recovery, Knifeplay, Non-canon-compliant after S1, Nonadherence to medical best practices, Not-quite-fisting, Possessiveness, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Teasing, fantasies, pain play, though more for the less overtly sexual parts of the story than for the fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-12 13:43:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: "Would it help if I broke something of yours?"





	Not this, nor any flower

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rolling up like a year late with Starbucks, but HELLO. I am only through the end of Season 1 of this show but I just had to pause to vomit my id all over before moving on to the next season. Consider me a time-traveler from the S1/S2 hiatus. As so often with things I write, representation does not equal real-life endorsement, and if you ever find yourself in a situation like this one, first of all, don't go to France in the first place, and secondly, get out. 
> 
> Thanks, as ever, to [greywash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash) for the beta, and for watching _Killing Eve_ with me on vacation and not laughing too hard when I cover my face because it's embarrassing how exactly this show has my number.

Out the door down the stairs she couldn't—clutching her stomach, pressing her guts back in. Voices from upstairs; shouting; dimmer now blurring together. Out on the street. She had to get—get out of the city; local hospitals the first place they'd check, she had to— _I need to help you_ thunking stickily to the inside of her skull so she shook her head. God it hurt. Footsteps down the stairs. At the corner of her building a woman got out of a cab in tulle-wrapped Balenciaga stilettos; "Oh! Mon dieu, quelle affreuse"; her eyes wide before she even saw the gun. Villanelle slid in behind her. Blood squelching between her fingers through the fabric of her top. 

"I want," she told the—still _standing_ there, it would be funny if she wasn't—"give them to me, give me your—" gesturing with her head at the woman's feet because Villanelle's hands were full of her own blood and hard metal. Gun steady on the woman who bent; took off her heels; tossed them on the seat with a little scream so that Villanelle could lower her gun hand. Pull them to her. Gauze pulled taut from the top of the counter to the vamp: an exuberant Martha Graham mourner of a shoe. Red a few shades lighter than the sticky seeping leaking of her insides around her pressing palm: _pain_. Pain, _fuck_ , bad, fuck bad but it'd been bad before. She knew how to—how not to—

"Thank you," Villanelle said. Smiled. "They're lovely"; and swung around to point the gun at the driver: "From you," she said, "this car."

Gun on the seat beside her. Clutching with one hand her belly with the other the wheel, easing onto the A10. If she could make it—if she could _think_ if she could. They'd run a scan on all the hospital records in a—what? Not a radius. The whole country, probably. Nobody knew about the Chinon house but if she were bleeding too much. Bleeding inside. She could hear her breath get high and hard and forced it back down. 

Her vision narrowing to black, her whole lap filling with blood, she got herself to a hospital in Orsay. Let herself pass most of the way out while they cleaned her; imaged her; knocked her out and stitched her up and then told her she was lucky: the knife had not perforated her bowel or sliced up her intestines. They bandaged her and talked at her while she watched the clock: who did this to her? Did she have a place to stay? They were obligated, they said, to alert the police, and she thought: two witnesses and a stolen car. "No charges, no," she said, sliding down from the exam table, pretending not to understand. "He loves me, really he does"; and despite the nurse's indignant protests she limped out of the emergency room: her stomach bound together, both her hands free. 

The cabbie would have reported her so she left his car in the hospital car park; limped through the drizzle first to a costume-shop and then to a pharmacy and then to the Orsay train station. Even with the bandages, the pain kept her breathing shallow. _Sharp_ , hot. Waiting on a bench for the 20:10 to Chinon she toyed with her Brigitte Bardot wig and practiced counting in: two. three. Out: two. Konstantin had said steady for a kill was eight in, six out, before he'd realised Oksana, becoming Villanelle, did not require steadiness. Not for that.

On the train she did not sleep but shallow-breathed, waited. The acrylic sundress and the hot wig itched her. _Écoutez!_ the nurse had called after her. _Vous êtes blessée, vous ne pouvez pas sortir seule_ , but alone and moving had been easier than this: staying still, watching her back. Sharp oozing ache under the bandages but she breathed. The train moved. They arrived in Chinon. Bread and three cheeses from the shop next to the station. A mile further on foot with her gun tucked into the pocket of her rucksack, and she let herself in. Bolted the door; collected all the blankets in the place; fell onto the bed; and slept. 

She woke in the night. Full bladder. Pain seared down her side, mis-wired. Sparking all the way through her hip. Down her thigh. Bodies were. Fascinating, always. _She never even touched me there_ , Villanelle thought, lowering herself down onto the toilet with her mouth open, gasping at the crackling starburst pain down her leg. Holding herself up with her hands as she pissed. Dealing with the toilet paper was a pain, and then: hoisting herself back up. Clutching to the counter until her legs would hold her. 

Back in bed she prodded her hip. Her leg. Chaotic tendrils of pain: her thigh wrapped 'round with hot sparking wires. 

"Eve didn't even hurt you," she told her leg, out loud in the darkness. "She only hurt—" moving her hand toward her belly, but: a rolling wave. Nausea swamped her and she had to be still. Eyes closed. Breathe. Breathe. Eventually the sick feeling seeped back out of her and she was asleep again, almost before she thought: _That's the first time all day I've thought her name_. 

She woke again and her whole body was sore. She rolled over. Tore off bread with her teeth. Bit into a wedge of Olivet cendré and it bloomed on her tongue; her side ached. Her belly grumbled; lurched; then settled. 

As she had done in the night she pushed herself to upright. The pain now was steady; radiating out from her side in a hot unfriendly blossom. She grunted. Her shuffle to the washroom stiff, but constant. 

The bathroom mirror revealed her, filthy, from the hips up. How long had it been? Naked except for the bandage taped against her stomach she bent over the taps: started the hot water running and turned back to the mirror. She watched her mirror-fingers peeling back the tape, showing eight neat stitches. Blue thread through her swollen skin. 

A hand in the water: almost too hot to touch. She added half a turn of cold and switched the toggle to the hand-held shower attachment. As steam thickened in the little room she sat on the edge of the tub looking down at her own side. Each stitch had a little blue bristle at the bottom; like Villanelle's wound was growing a beard. 

Carefully, arms holding her weight, she lowered herself into the bath. Unhooked the shower attachment and held it above her head; above her shoulders. Water poured down. The heat on the tender skin of her wound made her hiss; teeth clenched. She hooked the thing back on its holder to soap her hair, then unhooked it to rinse. She dropped in the stopper and let the bath fill to just below her belly button before shutting off the water. Drip, drip, in the quiet room. So very quiet. Dull, soon enough. 

For now, though. She looked down again at her little blue beard, with its angry puckered red lips. Lightly touched. Was it her imagination the way the pain got worse before her fingers even touched skin? The wound was a line instead of just a hole, because right after Eve had pushed Villanelle's own knife into her, she had climbed on top of her and even though Villanelle had said _Don't pull it_ she had lifted the handle and _yanked_ , and the _look_ on her face—

Villanelle closed her eyes. Back to the tub's porcelain. Was she angry? Impressed? She wanted—what? She lay in the steamy room in the cooling water, half-dozing, and kept thinking about Eve's face in that second, just after. And also the second before, when Villanelle had told her not to worry: that she knew what she was doing. 

Day three in Chinon she woke up bored. That was good, she thought. She must be healing. But not healed enough to enjoy a walk to the store, or even a turn through the garden. So she called up Monsieur Deschamps in the village; two hours later he showed up with food and wine for the week, and a two-year-old laptop. 

Villanelle wrapped herself in the musty terry dressing-gown from the washroom, made herself a cup of tea, shuffled with it to the bay window, and spent an overcast afternoon ordering a small emergency wardrobe with one of the VISA gift cards she'd secreted in the desk. Then she opened the wine, and worked on getting herself into London's CCTV network. 

It was annoying, she thought later—much later—how she could not really curl up, with the ache still in her side and her newly bristly belly. She would have liked to wrap herself around warm glowing plastic: re-form the blanket nest for the two of them, together. On the little screen the streetlight flickered outside Eve and Niko's house. Behind their curtains: electric light; shadows. The lamp in the front room shut off, and another, further from the window, came on instead. A dimmer glow. Then that light shut off too, and the house was dark; Villanelle let her eyes close. 

The next few days were _not_ boring. Waiting for something is only boring if you either know what it is, or you know for sure that it will happen, or you don't care whether it happens or not; and so Villanelle—was not bored. She watched Eve come home at night, well before dinnertime, her arms full of grocery bags. She watched her pull up to the kerb in a rented car; then carry bag after bag out to it, some of them with strange shapes inside, some of them overflowing with what looked like beach towels. She watched her in stretch pants, soaked with sweat, walking home from a yoga studio. She caught Eve on camera other places in the city: waiting for a bus; sitting at an outdoor lunch counter, eating ceviche and drinking white wine in the middle of the day, her shoulders half-turned toward a woman in her 60s, albino-blonde, who gestured wildly when she spoke. They split the bill. Shook hands rather than hugging or kissing, when they said goodbye. Villanelle watched Eve and thought of Konstantin when he had told her to _Do something normal_. And : Normal stuff, she'd said to Eve. Normal; normal. What would Konstantin say about this? As far as Villanelle could see, Eve hadn't gone to work since she'd come back from Paris. 

Villanelle watched as Eve and Niko left the house. His hand on the small of her back: she didn't react. He was in trousers and a spring-weight jacket; Eve had on heels and a peacoat. Mid-market heels: not Villanelle's. They got in a cab and Villanelle didn't lose them: cross-legged on her bed with her spine curled toward her laptop and a half-eaten bowl of noodles going cold against her leg, she clicked camera to camera to camera—"Oh, oh!" she said aloud to the empty room, as she followed them around a corner—until the three of them pulled up together on a side-street outside a hole in the wall in Soho, its outdoor seating folded up against the wall, out of the rain that had just stopped. Eve and Niko got out of the cab; went into the restaurant; left Villanelle in the street. "Rude," she said. No one answered. She could barely see Eve, reaching up to hug someone just inside the door. 

Villanelle sat up. Stretched. Picked up her cold pasta in one hand and her laptop in the other and unfolded herself from the bed. Stood at the kitchen counter to eat the rest of the cold spaghetti; then dumped the bowl in the sink. In the street outside the restaurant a bicycle nearly hit a labrador and then sped off, the dog-walker shouting at the biker's back. Then there were only cars. A few pedestrians. Their breaths fogged the air: late in the year for the weather to be so cold. Inside, Eve and Niko and their friends were eating; drinking. Villanelle opened a bottle of Beaujolais. Poured herself a glass, and toasted the little glowing screen. And then—

That was Eve. Villanelle sank down, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. Eve, in a poorly-fitted white sleeveless sheath dress, and no coat. No Niko with her. No friends. Stepping outside she hugged her hands around her opposite elbows but she did not go back in. Villanelle could hear her own heart beating in her ears. She curled her right hand into a fist: nails into her palm. 

Eve's evening bag hung from her wrist. She leaned back against the building. Stared straight ahead. If she turned her head ten degrees to her left she'd be looking right at Villanelle, through the CCTV camera. Instead she stood there, staring into the empty street, her breath fogging out in soft clouds. A car passed. Headlights; tail lights. She must be shivering, Villanelle thought. Then Eve reached into her evening bag and pulled out a knife; and Villanelle's mouth flooded. 

_This_ , she thought, _it's this_ ; and she pulled the computer into her lap. On the screen Eve looked down at the knife that she had brought along with her on a dinner date, with her husband and their friends. It was a full-sized boning knife. She must have taken it from her home. She must have stood in her kitchen, and looked at it, and decided to put it in her bag. As Villanelle watched, a grainy Eve closed her hand around the blade and it was so frustrating, not to be able to see better. Not to be able to hear. Eve would be clenching her hand; must be. Her posture had not changed: still leaning back against the wall, shoulders and hips; but now her head was bent so that Villanelle saw only her lovely cloud of hair and not the expression on her face as she looked down at her own hand closed hard around a blade and then, all in one motion with her other hand on the handle, _pulled_. 

Blood. Black on the computer screen: Eve opened her hand and it was full of black blood, and the blood dripped off her fingers and onto the white of her skirt; Villanelle would take that dress. Slash all the seams, cut out the bloodstained section. Put it in a frame. Or—make it into a pillow. She would do that, she really would when she was well, but now she watched, _watched_ —it was this moment, right here. You couldn't look away, you had to _watch_ in order to catch the change, only—only from this angle Villanelle couldn't see. She couldn't—Eve was looking down. Bleeding onto the ground outside a trendy Soho restaurant. Even before she dropped the knife Villanelle knew that it must have happened already: knew it from the quickness of Eve's breath. The larger clouds. Eve tipped her face up and her mouth was open. Was she talking? Screaming? No one rushed out of the restaurant. If she kept breathing like that she would pass out. With her clean hand she was digging in her bag; did a person not bring a bandage if they were obviously planning to slice open their own hand? But a handkerchief was the best Eve could find. She braced her wrist against her thigh to tie it around her damaged hand, which stained her dress even more. She knotted it. Kicked the knife into the storm drain. Looked down at herself and collapsed back against the wall. _Shit_ , Villanelle lip-read, or maybe just imagined. _Shit_ , over and over; _Shit, shit_ —

And then Eve turned, and went back inside. Villanelle thought about the conversation happening just inside the door; and she thought of outrageous sums of money. What would a person say? What would Eve? She opened another tab in her browser. A bank website; an account linked to an account linked to an account. They had that one, she thought. Eve could—she had found her, once. Villanelle got up off the floor, and took her laptop to bed; and watched, ten minutes later, as Niko bundled Eve, back in her peacoat, into another cab. 

She yawned. Nestled her head into the pillow. Before her eyes closed she set up a transaction, dated for the next day; but it took three more bread crumbs and most of a week before Eve showed up on her doorstep. When she did appear she was angry, in a parka, holding a gun. 

"All right!" a voice called, banging on Villanelle's front door. "I'm here, like you wanted!"

Three weeks after her injury and Villanelle was healing well; the sutures half-dissolved under her shiny raw new skin. She liked it. She liked that it was sore, and angry. She liked that she had lived through it, and that it would scar. She'd thought of letting Eve break down the door; of coming downstairs in a cropped halter and low-slung jeans, pausing for effect when the wound was even with Eve's eyes. But then she'd thought: too much to give away. Eve had not worn Villanelle's heels, after all. So Villanelle instead threw on a silk sundress: long, navy, ties at the shoulders. If they'd been going out she'd have accessorised with espadrilles, and a gold bracelet. As it was, she picked up her knife. 

"I'm here!" Eve was shouting, still. "I'm fucking here, asshole. Even if this is literally the _worst_ possible—"

Her hand, with the gun in it, was still raised when Villanelle opened the door. 

"Tsk," Villanelle said. "You will hurt yourself." 

"Like you care," Eve said, and didn't move her hand.

"Is the safety off? You'll shoot yourself in the shoulder; not a good injury."

"Let me _in_ , you dick," Eve said, so Villanelle stepped back, knife at her side; feeling herself slip into the Villanelle she was, when Eve was with her. 

Eve in her sturdy outdoors clothing, with the gun she wouldn't use, stomping past Villanelle's dainty coat rack and her glass-topped side table with the delicate curving legs: Villanelle approved. She, also, was solider than the world around her. It meant the two of them matched up: circling each other around the little coffee table, blunter and brighter than anything else in the room. 

"I'm not an idiot," Eve said. 

"No," Villanelle agreed. Circling. Eve's jeans were tucked into brown leather boots; her parka covered her hips and whatever she was wearing on top. "Take off your coat," Villanelle told her. "And your boots."

Eve made a small, impatient sound. She looked at Villanelle sideways and then grunted; bent. Set the gun on the coffee table and pulled off her boots, without looking; then unzipped her parka. A light-blue button-down, untucked. A summer-weight beige cardigan. _Beige_. 

"You are trying to hurt me with that cardigan," Villanelle said. "I dressed nice for you."

"I know you meant for me to come here," Eve said. She let the parka fall to the sofa; left the cardigan on. Picked up the gun. "If the likes of the Twelve haven't found you after three weeks, there's no chance someone like me could do it, unless you wanted me to." 

"I wanted to—give you the opportunity."

"Ah. Right. The opportunity." Eve laughed: that thin laugh she had made at the Paris flat. Villanelle didn't know if she liked it. It seemed not to be for her; maybe not even about her. "Christ," said Eve. "What am I doing here."

"Mm," said Villanelle. Biting her lip. "It's because you're so impulsive. I like it."

She stepped up onto the coffee table, her left foot covering the glass where Eve's gun had rested; and then she stepped down. Face to face. Eve didn't back up, though her eyes flicked down to the knife.

"Everyone told me not to come," Eve said. She raised her face to look up at her and Villanelle looked down: eyes so dark it was like they went on forever. The strip of blue between the horrible beige fuzz of the sweater and the creased-soft lure of her skin.

"Everyone?" she said. "Who did you tell about me? What did you say?"

Eve just pressed her lips together, which meant she didn't want to tell. Because she had not actually told anyone? Or because she thought Villanelle would—

"I didn't want to come," Eve said. She was breathing hard. "I shouldn't have come." 

At her side the hand not holding the gun fisted; flexed. When it opened Villanelle caught a glimpse of a red-brown scabbed-over wound.

"Hm," she said.

"What? I didn't." 

"You like breaking things," said Villanelle. "I understand that. But then you—"

"No." Half a step back, scab hidden in a fist: Villanelle wanted. "No," Eve said again, "I don't."

"Oh, you don't?" Head to the side meant mocking. "Mm."

"No," Eve said. "I—"

Villanelle stepped forward and let her throat open. "You didn't leave your Mister Moustaches in London for weeks to come chase me around Russia? You didn't flood my flat with Perrier-Jouët and stain my favourite dressing-gown with perfume?"

"I was doing my—"

"Oh your job, hm. You must not have gone back to London and cut all contact with MI6, then. Nor made yourself into a housewife for a fortnight and then told your husband, let's call up Bob and Sarah, go out for supper—"

" _What_." 

Eve was backing up. Backing. Villanelle was following her: adjusting their course so they didn't trip on the sofa. Eve's eyes had gone wide. She was holding the gun up, pointing it at Villanelle's face. 

"You didn't tell your husband," Villanelle went on, "to pick out a dress for you? Of course he chose the worst thing in your closet, a solid light colour to wear for red wine and lasagna, but you didn't put it on? You didn't slip a slim little knife into your clutch and you didn't leave the house and get a cab to the restaurant and give your friends a hug and then a half-hour later you didn't leave them at the table, walking into the cold without your coat but with your—"

"Stop," Eve said. The gun was shaking. 

"—bag in your hand? You didn't take it out and slice your own hand open and let it spill all over your—"

A _bang_ and then, behind Villanelle, a crash. That was the pink-and-white vase: fallen from the bookshelf. Shattered. Glass splinters everywhere. The shot had gone wide. 

"Shit," Eve said, her face— _there_ —transforming like Villanelle remembered, fuck, like she hadn't been able to watch on the CCTV outside the restaurant. "God, shit," Eve was saying, opening her hand, letting the gun fall to the floor with her mouth opening and her eyes squeezing shut and her whole body trembling so Villanelle stepped forward and slapped her hard across the cheek. Eve's skin still cool from the outside air. 

"Don't fix it," Villanelle said. 

"Wh—what?" Eve's breath was still shaky and unfocused so Villanelle pushed forward: backed her against the wall. Her knife at Eve's throat. 

"Would it help if I broke something of yours?" 

"I don't—I don't know," Eve said. Staring at her, or. Through her. Breath still coming too fast and her eyes weren't tracking; didn't flick down at the knife. Villanelle wanted to lean forward; put her mouth on the side of Eve's throat so that with her lips she could feel her gasping. Instead she pulled back. Looked.

Then grabbed one front side of the cardigan, raised the knife and slashed, top to bottom: a piece of beige knit coming away in her hand. She let it fall to the floor at their feet, next to Eve's gun. 

"It is gone," Villanelle said. "It's ruined; there is nothing you can do. It was terrible, anyway. Do one of mine."

Eve stared down at the front of her sweater, now puddled on the floor. Eyes still wide but her breathing was easier: did she notice? Villanelle, watching her face and her chest and her throat, saw when she swallowed. Again; again. 

And Eve leaned forward. Her mouth opened just the smallest amount. Then she reached out, clumsy, a hand either side of the V neck of Villanelle's dress and she _ripped_. The tearing of stitches and charmeuse; Villanelle let her spine snake. She only just stopped her hips from kicking. 

"Mm," she said. Looked down: a rent in the navy fabric from her sternum almost to her belly button. A printed rose, torn in half: the warp and weft fraying apart between petals. "This was very expensive, you know." She said it to observe Eve's breath: sped up, which made Villanelle want to smile, so she pouted. "A gift. From Konstantin."

On schedule the panic rose in the back of Eve's eyes and she watched it. Fascinated. She'd been right. She'd been _right_ ; she felt like laughing. How _could_ Eve be wanting, exactly right now, to repair the dress Villanelle had egged her on to break? Where did it _come_ from? How long did it last? What did she think of, now, when she thought of kicking perfume bottles across the room; when she thought of—how could she. How _could_ she, but she was; her wild-horse stare and the sweat coming up on her temples; and Villanelle, almost wanting to let it keep on, stepped forward and sliced Eve's button-down from collar to hem, just to one side of the placket. 

Eve gasped. Her gaze snapped back to focused. Villanelle grinned. 

"You should have stuck around," she told Eve. Her tongue, wetting her dry lip. "For the aftercare. I did _try_ to shoot you, in retu—" 

Quicker than before: Eve, grunting, reached out to yank the strap from Villanelle's shoulder. Popping stitches. Half Villanelle's dress fell down along her side and growling, half-stripped, she dropped to her knees. Got her fingers under the waistband of Eve's jeans so that she could pull— _slice_ —drag the knife down the long side-seam from waist to ankle while Eve panted. Denim sagged to the floor; Eve's socked feet and her black cotton knickers.

Villanelle hummed. Breathed in panic-sweat and that deep ottery animal smell. Her face was inches from Eve's right hip but she didn't press close, and when she didn't Eve made a little—noise, like—

"This doing it for you?" Eve asked. Rough-voiced. 

Villanelle sat back on her heels. Looked up at her; then got her toes under her and unfolded herself back up to standing. A dress dragging on the floor got in the way so she let it fall from the other shoulder and stepped out of it, bare; then from Eve's right side, moving close to her and closer, slid around to her back. Eve tensed, but didn't pull back. Villanelle's mouth so close to the back of Eve's head that Eve's curls tickled her nose. 

"Hm," she murmured. "No. This is not for me."

Eve laughed. Harsh sound in the quiet room. 

"I don't fucking believe you," she said, and stomped back with her heel onto the top of Villanelle's bare foot. A flush of—pain, and— _tenderness_ : Eve's elbow, which she hadn't used, had been just at the height of Villanelle's injured side.

"If it were up to me," Villanelle told her, "I would instead be dressing you." Then she slit Eve's sweater and her shirt down the back from nape to waist.

Was Eve's noise closer to a moan, or a scream? Goose-bumps came up all along her lovely shoulders and Villanelle could _smell_ her but still there something Eve didn't like. Something about—her hands. The shirt-halves had fallen off her and the sleeves bunched around her hands, getting in the way of her fingers. She turned now, curling in on herself, using her knees to pull the fabric down over her wrists and her knuckles. She fought free of the wreckage of her shirts and then she stood in front of Villanelle, getting her breath back: bra and knickers plain black and all that gorgeous skin. Her hands on her hips. Shoulders pushing forward. 

"You sent clothes to my home," Eve said, like an accusation; Villanelle's face flushed hot.

"Mmmm." Stepping forward. "And you wore them."

Eve's jaw. The muscles worked, but she didn't step back. 

"So you want, what?" Eve said. "Was that some kind of fucked-up chivalry thing? Like a—courtship deal?" 

"No," Villanelle said. Frowned. "Yes." She puzzled over it, still standing topless in her living room with a knife in her hand; then felt her face relax. She laughed. "What do people do, during a courtship?"

"Sometimes that," Eve said. She stepped forward; Villanelle widened her eyes. Eve took another step. She was practically vibrating. Would she have preferred her to say—what? Villanelle had given both answers; one of them must have been right. Eve was saying: "If they get off on—displays of wealth, or."

"Ouf," said Villanelle. 

"Wrong-footing a person. Showing a person they know more about the person than the person knows about them." 

Her eyes were so hard. Glittering. Villanelle wanted—

"I don't mind if you know about me," she said, and lifted her chin; Eve closed the gap between them. Dug her fingers hard into the soft skin at Villanelle's uninjured hip. Villanelle let the slight pain show on her face, and watched Eve's expression shift from— _hunger_ to—fear—then waited just a second longer before she slapped Eve's face again and Eve jolted back inside herself. 

"Then: control," Eve said. She almost barked it at Villanelle; Villanelle could _bite_ her. All their teeth out. Rapture. Eve said, "If someone wanted to—take over another person's life. Make all the decisions. Not let them—go shopping, or. Whatever. Control even the small things, like what to put on in the morning."

Villanelle, very carefully, put her knife down on the side table. 

"First of all," she said. "It is not a small decision, what to put on in the morning." She tilted her head at Eve. "Or at night." 

That near-vibration again, under Eve's skin. Villanelle let the silence go on, and when it'd gone on long enough Eve made a strangled noise and kicked out with her heel at Villanelle's knee. Knee injuries were inconvenient so Villanelle moved just enough that Eve's foot connected with her shin instead, letting the blow land solidly and well; and then turned; got to the side of her, twisted Eve's arm up behind her back, with Eve bent double in front of her. 

"And also: no," Villanelle told her. "I wanted you to choose to put them on. I wanted to see that you had chosen—"

"Like I'm _choosing_ now?" Eve spit at her; and Villanelle released her at once. 

"You did," she said. "You are"; and she stepped back. 

As soon as Eve felt her move she turned and came straight at her. Fists up and elbows, crowding her back, clearly not thinking—not _thinking_ whether she should, or whether she'd win, whether it was a good idea; Villanelle groaned and blocked a punch; let others land: knuckles glancing off her cheekbone; an elbow to her sternum; a knee coming up to bruise her thigh and then she made a hook with her ankle and took Eve's feet out from under her. Followed her down and they were scrapping on the floor, fuck, so much skin. Villanelle got on top of her, knees around Eve's hips; pinned Eve's hands to the floor and watched her writhe.

"I liked—oh," she said. "I just _saw_ you, all—beautiful. Your hair down, in silver. Bare shoulders. Arms."

She leant down. Nipped hard at Eve's underarm next to her head. 

"Fuck," Eve said. 

"If I let you go, will you hurt me?" Villanelle said; and Eve said "I'll try"; so Villanelle lifted her hands. The moment hers were free Eve reached up, up—grabbed Villanelle's hair and yanked her head sideways and down and then she was kissing her. Biting. Her lovely Eve's warm wet panic-stale mouth. 

They rolled. Cracks in the old floors dug into her shoulder; her neck. Eve got her on her back and Villanelle hummed, pleased; rocked her hips up, her right leg between Eve's, Eve's between hers. 

"Oh—God," Eve said; and Villanelle said, "Come on! You said you would." Eve swallowed and then _smacked_ her across the ribcage and the side of her right tit and Villanelle, breath-laughing, rocked up again and waited for Eve's moment of panic to show on her face before she slapped her ass and said, "You want me to touch you? Hm?" 

"Yeah," Eve said. Rocking down against her, wet through her knickers. "All right. Yes."

"Yes," Villanelle agreed. She slid fabric aside; rubbed two fingers through warm slick around the edges of her. "You like—" Villanelle said, and pressed with the heel of her hand for Eve to frot against. Her hips, jerking; her eyes, closed. "You want—?"

"Just—get _in_ ," Eve said. Groaned and shook her head and said: "Come on, just get—just—fill me up as much as you—"

A slow wicked blossom of a smile: Villanelle could feel it sweep her face. "I can fill you," she said, and flipped them again.

Eve's knickers, dragged down her legs. Off. Villanelle climbed back up her: knees to either side of Eve's left thigh she traced fingers back down around the rim of Eve's body. 

"Get—the fuck— _on_ ," Eve panted.

"Hurt me, then," she told her; and Eve groaned and then she reached up: pinched hard at Villanelle's right nipple and Villanelle hummed. Almost laughed.

"That's good for, hm," she said. "This much"; and slid her middle and ring fingers inside her: hard enough Eve'd feel it but not enough to satisfy: she whimpered. Pleading. Villanelle looked down at her. Cupped her palm and _curled_ —and Eve, twisting, biting her own mouth, scrabbled with her hands at the scarred hardwood. Villanelle slid out-up; down-in- _up_ ; the seam between her fingers teasing Eve's clit and the smell of her, fuck. Villanelle let herself shove in hard, just once; Eve cried out in relief so plain that—not yet, Villanelle thought; not yet: don't let her have it yet. 

"You know what I think I liked," Villanelle told her, conversationally, casually fucking into her with a motion steady and slow and softer than Eve wanted and Eve—whined. Panted; the shocked look on her face. She reached down to grab Villanelle's wrist and pull her _tighter_ , but Villanelle pushed her hand away. "The idea of—I wanted you to look in the mirror and see, you know. _My_ Eve." 

"More," Eve said. "Fuck." 

"I liked the idea of you going out into the world," said Villanelle. Dreamily; as if they would live forever on this old floor: leisurely fucking, just two slick fingers and the meat of her thumb. "I wanted you to visit public places, where people could notice you. Gorgeous woman, all the heads turn. And mine would be the Eve everyone would see."

"Please," Eve said, "please, fuck, _more_."

"Aw," she said. "Poor baby. More?"

" _Yes_ ," Eve said; so Villanelle instead pulled back. Pulled most of the way out. Eve, left empty, helpless, pressing her hips up, could only try for the smallest tickling pressure of fingertips to clit and she cursed and cursed until Villanelle laughed; ducked her head; sealed her mouth over Eve's mouth to feel the vibrations of it in her lips and her teeth, _oh_. Her own breath, coming faster. Eve squirming under her and she let herself move down Eve's body until she could nose into the cup of Eve's bra; pressing it aside with her face and then: the side of Eve's breast soft against her cheek. She dragged her face along—skin; the warmth of it; hard little nipple skating along Villanelle's lips as she teased Eve's clit with tiny light flicks of her fingers, sucking at the edge of her areola, light and then hard and then biting. 

Eve might be—she might be crying. Those might be tears, all for Villanelle. Eve's choked uneven voice. If she'd had her way Villanelle would have pressed herself along the whole length of Eve's body. Feel her trembling for her. Keep it up for days. 

"More?" she said, and Eve sobbed, " _God, please, please_ " and Villanelle just—she had to—to raise her head. Take a breath; push herself back up Eve's body. "Then make it good this time," she said, her voice hard; and Eve, half-snarling, reached down and pressed her knuckles into the raw new skin next to Villanelle's wound.

Searing— _sparks_ —

"That's it," Villanelle said. Gasped. And tucking outside fingers under inside fingers shoved in, _hard_ , all four fingers, past the knuckles, pressing in and _in_ until her thumb stopped her going any further and "Ohjesus," Eve said. "Oh. Jesus." Grinding her hip bone against Villanelle's thumb-knuckle; her hips moving in little pressing circles, one breast still spilling out of her bra, her whole body sweat-slippery and her eyes rolling up and her hands on Villanelle's hips where they were tucked close to Villanelle's hand as she rode Eve's thigh. Villanelle's mouth flooded almost with the taste of her and she moved her wrist in sharp little jerks, giving Eve her thumb to grind against and most of her fist to fuck, fingers curling up into: "Oh god," Eve was saying, "Oh fuck, oh— _fuck_ —oh—" 

"Should I stop?" Villanelle said, grinning; and frantic, shaking her head, Eve raked her rough nails hard over Villanelle's ass: once, and _twice_ , clawing up from the place they met her own thighs almost to Villanelle's waist so that Villanelle would keep driving into her, hard as she could with that little rocking cupping of her wrist; _again_ as Eve's spine curled off the floor and her nails dragged burning over Villanelle's skin; _again_ as she clenched and—

—"Break my hand," Villanelle told her—

— _clenched_ and ran out of air—

Breathless, enchanted, with her gut aching and her ass on fire, Villanelle leaned up to kiss Eve's air-cold mouth and then slid down her, hand stilled inside her, and suckled gently, _so_ gently, at her clit and her stretched-tight labia and the join of their skins where Eve'd soaked her hand until Eve _trembled_ again—trembling—

"Oh my god," Eve panted. "Jesus. Can I."

She didn't have enough air to say more: Villanelle smiled. And would have kept doing it, dragging her cheek against Eve's scratchy-soft pubic hair and her salt-smelling skin, but Eve half sat up to drag at her wrist; ease her out of her and—

"Oh," Villanelle said. The pads of her fingers sliding along the slick hot muscle of Eve's tongue. Eve closed her eyes. Sucked.

It was quiet in the little house. Now that Eve had stopped all her cursing and whimpering you could hear the breeze through the trees outside. And Villanelle's own breath, harsh in her throat as she watched Eve sleepily fellate her hand; suck herself off Villanelle's first two fingers. The drone of a plane, far-off, as Villanelle leaned forward, slowly, to kiss the corner of Eve's mouth, and the side of her own knuckle. 

"You like it?" she said. Soft. As if there were something sleeping, that she didn't want to wake up. Slowly, Eve opened her eyes; slowly, she nodded. 

Villanelle kept eye contact: smiling at her as she used the hand in Eve's mouth to push her back onto her elbows; back onto her back. She kept her eyes locked on Eve's as she pulled herself closer; slung a knee over Eve's neck; sat on her chest. 

"Yes?" she said, and drew her hand out of Eve's mouth so that Eve, rough-voiced and blinking, not quite meeting her eyes anymore, could say "Yeah. Come on."

So she held onto the headboard and lifted herself up. But before she could lower down Eve's hands came up to stop her: fingers wrapping around the tops of Villanelle's thighs; thumbs digging in either side of her cunt. 

"There was more to it," Eve said. "Wasn't there. Your little—stunt, with the clothes."

Villanelle laughed. A little breathless. Holding herself up: her thighs were starting to burn. 

"You want to hear—what," she said. Pressing into Eve's thumbs massaging the join at her inner thighs. "That I wanted a little bit of me, maybe, moulded around your—hips, and your—tits, I—"

"Yeah," Eve said. "Tell me about that"; and pulled her down. 

Villanelle gasped. Rolled her hips to grind herself into Eve's tongue and her teeth, she was already so—Eve started to move her hands above her head but Villanelle dragged them back. Pressed Eve's fingers into her shiny raw scar; into the remnants of her mostly-absorbed stitches. Eve made a disbelieving noise but she didn't pull away and her mouth—her mouth was so warm. Her lips—her chin pressing up into Villanelle's perineum; teeth grazing her clit as Villanelle _thrust_ and "I liked," said, and _thrust_ gasping and melted all over Eve's face and her own inner thighs and thrust, curling her tailbone down and—back and _forward_ , knuckles white on the bars of the headboard with Eve's _nails digging into new-grown skin_ —

"I liked," Villanelle gasped. "Oh. _Fuck_ , that still—hurts, don't stop, I liked—I liked thinking of how you'd—walk how you'd— _oh_ ," close already, clenching her thighs; Eve with the hand not mauling her scar slapped her nail-stripped ass and half- _blind_ with it Villanelle: "—how you'd, unh, stand, hold your—hold yourself, how your—how your posture would change—oh god let me—" moving one shaking hand off the headboard to curl her fingers in Eve's gorgeous hair; hold her head while Eve hummed, suckled and her _tongue_ "—that all those things," Villanelle panted, "would change because you were—were fuck were—wearing me next to your _skin_ —"

She curled in half, crying out; and Eve, who learned fast, didn't stop digging her nails into all her tender parts until Villanelle, wrung out, rolled off her, collapsing next to her on the bed.

"So it wasn't at all because you wanted to scare the shit out of me," Eve said, wiping her mouth. "And let me know you could get to me, even in my own closet, in my own home."

Villanelle waved a hand, her eyes closed. Her heart felt about to beat out of her skull; then her throat; then her ribcage; then it slowed. 

"I guess that part doesn't translate as well to pillow talk," Eve said, after a while. "The part where you fucked up my whole—marriage, and—life, and. Friendships. Peace of mind." 

Villanelle made a noise like a question, turning carefully on her side. "Do you not think so?" she said. 

She was extremely interested in the answer. But after ten seconds or so of staring into her face, Eve just turned over, and closed her eyes. 

Later, Villanelle stood in the washroom and tugged the old terry robe around her; belted it at the waist. Thought about the beautiful peach silk robe that Eve had thrown on the floor of her Paris flat and then ruined with broken glass and perfume and then probably blood. You worked with what you had, she thought, cheerfully enough; and stuck a red Balenciaga pump into each of the robe's huge pockets, imagining slipping them over Eve's heels. Imagining the red mesh, clinging to Eve's skin. But when she walked into the bedroom, with a bowl of popcorn and a couple of glasses of Saumur Champigny, Eve had pulled the sheets up tight around her, like a human cocoon. 

"It's normal to freak out when you've broken something," Eve said, as soon as she saw her. She sounded like she'd been rehearsing that the whole time Villanelle had been in the kitchen and the toilet. 

"… Normal? I ordered this American snack for you, by the way." 

Villanelle slid the bowl into the middle of the bed, between them, then reached over to put Eve's wine glass on the bedside table. Eve pulled the sheets up closer around her shoulders, but she did at least meet Villanelle's eyes. 

"Yeah," she said. "I mean it's—you realize what you've done." 

"What you meant to do," Villanelle said. She popped a kernel in her mouth. "What you—planned to do. Ahead of time."

"Jesus."

"Don't they call it. Premeditation."

"Oh my god I'm _aware_ , I. Fuck."

The popcorn was salty, and warm. She hadn't been _tasting_ her food, Villanelle realised. Not for weeks. The butter coated the inside of her mouth; the wine stripped it out. Eventually, Eve got an arm out of the sheets, and snuck a few pieces for herself. 

"All right," Villanelle said. 

Eve stopped chewing, and then started again. "What?" she said.

"Normal: okay. You are probably right; I don't know. Useful? Hm." 

She tipped her head to the side. Took another handful of corn. Eve gave her a look; reached over for her wine, and took a long drink. Then scratched, with unnecessary force, at a bug bite on her neck: the wine sloshed. 

"It's—natural," Eve said. 

"If it is natural for you to go around breaking things, then what is helpful is to equip yourself as well as possible for life in a world in which the thing is broken."

"Well that's just—really convenient for you to say." Eve turned fully toward Villanelle, at last. "Given your line of work, and—everything, you know, well. You're still alive, apparently." Her sheet cocoon was slipping down off her shoulders and around her waist and she was letting it. Didn't care. "Apparently you don't _need_ any—misguided attempts to stop you from bleeding to death on your own floor, and I guess none of _your_ , you know, victims, have the chance to dwell on it after the fact if you don't do it for them, and maybe you don't even, I mean." 

She was breathing hard. Had taken off her bra while Villanelle had been in the other room: her breasts hung soft and heavy as her face drew together into a point and her free hand came up to jab at the air between them and her hair fell over her shoulders and into her eyes. She was furious and beautiful and Villanelle wondered which other parts of herself could hurt, if Eve wanted them to. 

"You probably don't even _remember_ ," Eve was saying, "a time when _you_ weren't—like this, like we are now, when you were—fucking—normal, or content, or— _home_ , so. So that's just. Very advantageous for you, to be able to." She laughed. " _Go with the flow_." 

Eve's hand trembled, holding the wine glass. Her chin trembled too. She was looking right at her. 

Villanelle dusted popcorn powder off her lap, and stood; and untied her terry robe with the shoes in the pockets, and let it fall to the floor. She sat back down, naked, the sides of her scratched-red ass on display and the shiny-pink stitched-up skin of her middle with its little red welling pinpricks: slightly itchy now, slightly bloody from the afternoon they'd had. She reached across and took Eve's fingers in hers; her palm. Eve's manicure was flaking off; her skin was chapped. They were such lovely hands. 

"Yes," Villanelle told her. Looking up, and smiling. "It is convenient. I am so very, very lucky; believe me: I know."

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Title is from HD's "[Fragment 113](https://havingbeenbreathedout.tumblr.com/post/34761841272/not-honey-not-the-plunder-of-the-bee-from)," itself a transformative work based on the Sappho fragment "Neither honey nor the bee for me."


End file.
